Sebastian Heise :: Blog :: Photos

When you are looking for places to stay on a trip like this, you always have several options.

The probably easiest one clearly is to just look at hotels. The downside to this -except of the price – is that you will be pretty much on your own and probably won’t get to know any people.

Second alternative is to stay at hostels. This is a lot cheaper, but if you are just at a stayover between stops it’s also pretty unlikely that you will make lots of new friends since everyone will go his own way first thing next morning.

Last year I joined a community which uses the Internet to ease up your life because you can search for places to stay for the night plus make new friends while traveling. www.couchsurfing.com is for people who are willing to open up their own houses to complete strangers, letting them stay on their couch or floor and trusting that they are good people. Turns out most people actually are. :-) I’ve had 15 couchsurfer staying at my place this year alone and didn’t have a single bad experience. On the contrary: I am still in touch with some of them – more or less frequently.

So how does it work?
First of all your need to search for people in or near your desired destination. Then you look at their profiles and decide if you might get along with them or not. Pay attention at their references and comments from other fellow couchsurfers. (Remember: not everyone gets along with everyone else. It’s like in real life: Just because someone doesn’t like someone else, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t get along with each other.
After picking a few people you would stay, you just write them a note via the website asking if they would host you or not. Maybe the person will reply – maybe not (most people do).
It’s that easy.

But what if your host decides to change his or her mind the very last minute and you can’t find another host which hosts you? You will be back at square one: finding yourself looking for a hotel or hostel…